Ekiti Decides: A perspective

Ekiti is a state under siege — poor leadership.
Poor leadership has encumbered state with myopic vision for decades.
The statistics are appalling:
⦁ Third poorest state in Nigeria in IGR Generation totalling N2.4billion (2016); compared with Ondo State which is next door of N8.9b and Osun State totalling N13billion and Lagos N330b
⦁ GDP (PPP) of $2.8b …number 33 out of 36 states.
⦁ Heavy debt profile of N86b and above
⦁ Untapped human resource capital in millions

How can a state with probably the largest reserve of academic and professional human capital per capital, be the third poorest state in Nigeria.
Its all down to lack of visionary and strategic leadership capable of mobilizing the vast reserve of human capital to create wealth from technology, agriculture, energy and so on.

2011 Elections – total number of voters approx. 320,000
After long drawn out electoral problems in Ekiti State from 2007 to 2009, the Appeal Court sitting in Ilorin awarded the governorship to Dr Fayemi based on evidence of voters fraud. The final result is as below:

There are 35 gubernatorial aspirants in Ekiti State.
The winner of the coveted seat shall need to gather between 250,000 and 300,000 votes.

The percentage of the disillusioned voters remains extremely high at over 50%.
The electioneering campaign has not been strategically carried out since none of the aspirants has provided a detailed plan of solving the fundamental problems of poor economy, high youth unemployment, low IGR, low GDP at Local government level as well as at State level.
There is no strategic plan on how to mobilise and maximize the vast human resource capital belonging to the State.

In view of this, the conclusion is that the contest is a 2-horse race between PDP and APC. This is because these two parties hold sway on the 40% professional voters who are committed to either party because of the pre-election handout in pittance money, kongo of rice and whatever else.

Parties operating Kingdom Ideology and Principles
In order to be relevant in this election, the parties operating the Kingdom ideology, principles and values system should form a coalition and pull votes together. The highest percentage of disillusioned voters is Christians because they have no faith in the electoral process.

If the above can be done within the next two weeks, the possibility of an upset is strong otherwise not. The high Christian population in Ekiti State should be mobilized to garner 300,000 votes and victory is assured.

Strategic Approach
Strategies to create wealth from ecosystems of innovative projects in agriculture and technology driven by the large numbers of engineers, technologists, scientists and other professionals in the State that is replete with great human capital.

Strategies to create wealth by implementing the 7 Mountains of social impact using the 16 Local Governments as centres for development in religion, economy, family, media, sports & entertainment, education, politics & government. This shall cause a rapid growth of LG GDP.

By implementing the above strategies, Ekiti State shall move up from the third poorest to being among the first 10.

About Gbenga Osinaike

Gbenga Osinaike is a 1992 graduate of Dramatic Arts from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He specialised in Play-writing. He also holds a Master of Arts Degree from the University of Lagos. He was Assistant Editor in Punch Newspapers from where he resigned having worked for 13 years to start Church Times Nigeria in March 2007. He is currently the Nigeria representative of US based Institute of Global Church Studies and also the Publicity Secretary of the Lagos, Nigeria Chapter of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. He is married and blessed with two children.